Generally, visual inspection is necessarily performed to diagnose a cutaneous legion, thereby obtaining an amount of information. However, not only discrimination between a mole and a spot but also discrimination between a benign tumor and a malignant tumor are substantially difficult with a naked eye inspection and even a magnifying glass inspection. For the reasons, dermoscopic inspection in which a dermoscope-equipped camera is used to capture an image of a disease has been conventionally performed.
The dermascope is a noninvasive diagnostic device in which a disease irradiated with light from, for example, a halogen lamp, and unobstructed by reflective light due to echo gel or a polarization filter is magnified (typically ×10) and subjected to observation. A dermoscopic diagnosis can be defined as the inspection of skin diseases with the dermoscope. For more detail, see internet URL (http://www.twmu.ac.jp/DNH/department/dermatology/dermoscopy.html) (accessed on Sep. 1, 2014). In accordance with the dermoscopic diagnosis, scattered reflection occurring due to a cuticle is eliminated, thereby rendering the distribution of pigmentation from an epidermis to a superficial intradermal layer increasingly visible.
For example, Patent Literature 1 (Japanese patent publication No. 2005-192944 (A)) discloses technologies of a remote diagnosis apparatus of diagnosing a pigmented skin disease employing a value such as color, a texture, an asymmetricity, and a circularity based on an image of a skin captured by the dermoscope. In accordance with Patent Literature 1, a portable phone provided with a dermoscope-equipped camera is used, and an image of a skin having a disease of a benign nevus pigmentosus and etc. and having a risk of a melanoma is captured by the dermoscope. The portable phone is connected to an internet due to its network connecting function, and the image of the skin captured is transmitted via the internet to the remote diagnosis apparatus to request a diagnosis. Upon receiving the image of the skin based on the request, the remote diagnosis apparatus uses a melanoma diagnosis program to determine whether based on the image of the skin the disease is a melanoma or not, or in a case where the disease is the melanoma, which stage of the melanoma is. The determination as a result is transmitted to a physician having requested the diagnosis.
While diagnosis based on the afore-mentioned dermoscopic image has become widely used in the field of cutaneous disease, clear shape change or pattern is often difficult to obtain. In addition, an observation of the image and a determination of a lesion actually depend on a skill of a physician or clinician. While an algorism for performing a top-hat morphology processing to clearly extract a linear vessel or punctate vessel can be considered, when applied to a vessel with an irregular image gradient it results in a false pattern such as a moire, thereby deteriorating the accuracy of diagnosis.